Part of the reasoning could be a financial one. Cameron, who is shooting the Avatar sequels back to back in New Zealand, is seeking Chinese investment in the sequels.

“Within five years, China could easily be as big a gross-revenue market for film as North America, and there are very specific economic incentives for having both Chinese content and Chinese co-production. We are already funded on Avatar 2 and 3, but if we qualify as a co-production, there might be some incentives in the percentage of revenue we can take out of China,” Cameron says. “We are running the numbers to see if that makes sense.”

“For Avatar, we can certainly use Chinese actors as performance capture actors because any accent issues will hide within the Na’vi accent,” says Cameron.

If the funding is made available, Cameron could use actors and crew from China to work on the films. The films will be shot using the same model as the original though–principle filming will take place in New Zealand.